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OUR 
NEW  DUTIES 


A  COMMENCEMENT  ADDRESS  AT  THE 

SEYENTY-FIFTH  ANNIVERSARY  OF  MIAMI  UNIVERSITY 

THURSDAY,  JUNE  15,  1899 


OUR  NEW  DUTIES 


A  COMMENCEMENT  ADDRESS  AT  THE 

SEVENTY- FIFTH  ANNIVERSARY  OF  MIAMI  UNIVERSITY 

THURSDAY,  JUNE   15,  1899 


BY 

WHITELAW  REID 


NEW  YORK 
PRINTED  FOR  THE  UNIVERSITY 

1899 


t  //o 


MIAMI  UNIVERSITY. 

Hon.  JOHN  W.  HEBRON,  LL.  D.,  Cincinnati,  Ohio, 

President  of  the  Board  of  Trustees. 
Miss  ANNA  J.  BISHOP,  Oxford,  Obio, 

Secretary  of  the  Board  of  Trustees. 

Rev.  W.  O.  THOMPSON,  D.  D., 

President  of  the  University. 

OXFORD,  OHIO,  June  27,  1896. 
Hon.  WHITELAW  REID,  LL.  D, 

New  York. 
Dear  Sir  : 

At  the  request  of  Dr.  Thompson,  the  President  (who  is  writing  you  on  the  subject), 
I  enclose  you  a  copy  of  a  resolution  adopted  by  the  Board  of  Trustees  of  Miami  Uni 
versity,  at  a  meeting  held  June  17,  1896. 

Hoping  it  may  be  possible  for  you  to  be  present,  as  requested,  at  our  Seventy-fifth 
Anniversary,  I  am  Very  truly  yours, 

ANNA  J.  BISHOP, 

Secretary  of  the  Board. 


Excerpt  from  Minutes  of  Meeting  of  Board  of  Trustees  of  Miami  University, 
held  June  17,  1896. 

Mr.  Hunt  offered  the  following  resolution,  which  was  adopted : 

"  Whereas  the  Seventy-fifth  Anniversary  of  the  founding  of  Miami  University  will 
mark  an  important  event  in  the  history  of  the  educational  work — not  only  in  the 
Miami  Valley,  but  in  the  Western  Country ;  and 

"Whereas,  this  Board  contemplates  the  commemoration  of  that  occasion  by  appro 
priate  exercises  in  every  way  worthy  of  the  fame  of  the  institution : 

"Therefore,  Be  it  Resolved:  That  the  Board  of  Trustees  of  Miami  University,  in 
recognition  of  the  importance  of  that  anniversary  and  the  fitting  ability  of  the  Hon 
orable  Whitelaw  Reid,  of  the  class  of  1856,  and  the  interest  which  he  has  always 
manifested  in  his  Alma  Mater,  does  hereby  tender  to  him,  in  behalf  of  all  the  friends 
of  Miami  University,  a  cordial  invitation  to  be  present  and  participate  in  the  exercises 
by  delivering  the  address  at  that  time." 


OPHIR  FARM, 

PURCHASE,  N.  Y., 

July  10,  1896. 
Miss  ANNA  J.  BISHOP, 

Secretary  Board  of  Trustees, 

MIAMI  UNIVERSITY,  Oxford,  O. 

Dear  Madam  : 

I  beg  to  acknowledge  your  courteous  transmission  of  a  resolution  by  the  Board  of 
Trustees  of  Miami  University,  inviting  me  to  deliver  an  address  on  its  Seventy -fifth 
Anniversary. 

I  am  very  sensible  of  the  great  honor  done  me  by  the  Trustees  of  my  Alma  Mater 
in  this  invitation.  The  time  is  still  remote,  and  one  cannot  always  be  sure  of  his 
ability  to  fill  engagements  made  so  far  in  advance ;  but  it  would  give  me  the  greatest 
pleasure  to  undertake  the  work,  and  I  shall  endeavor  so  to  shape  my  affairs  as  to 
prevent  anything  from  interfering  with  it. 

With  renewed  thanks,  I  am,  dear  madam, 

Very  truly  yours, 

WHITELAW  REID. 


ADDRESS 


Sons  and  Friends  of  Miami: 

I  join  you  in  saluting  this  venerable  mother  at  a  notable  way- 
mark  in  her  great  life.  One  hundred  and  seven  years  ago  the 
Congress  voted  and  Greorge  Washington  approved  a  foundation 
for  this  university.  Seventy-five  years  ago  it  opened  its  doors. 
Now  si  monumentum  quseris,  circumspice.  There  is  the  cata 
logue.  There  are  the  long  lists  of  men  who  so  served  the  State 
or  the  Church  that  their  lives  are  your  glory,  their  names  your 
inspiration.  There  are  the  longer  lists  of  others  to  whom  kinder 
fortune  did  not  set  duties  in  the  eye  of  the  world.  But  Miami 
made  of  them  citizens  who  leavened  the  lump  of  that  growing 
West,  which  was  then  a  sprawling,  irregular  line  of  pioneer  set 
tlements  and  is  now  an  empire.  Search  through  it,  above  and 
below  the  Ohio,  and  beyond  the  Mississippi.  So  often  —  where 
there  are  centres  of  good  work,  or  right  thinking  and  right  liv 
ing  —  so  often  and  so  widely  spread  will  you  find  traces  of  Miami, 
left  by  her  own  sons  or  coming  from  those  secondary  centres 
that  grew  out  of  her  example  and  influence,  that  you  are  led  in 
grateful  surprise  to  exclaim :  If  this  be  the  work  of  a  little  col 
lege,  God  bless  and  prolong  the  little  college !  If,  half -starved 
and  generally  neglected,  she  has  thus  nourished  good  learning 
and  its  proper  result  in  good  lives  through  the  three-quarters  of 
a  century  ended  to-day,  may  the  days  of  her  years  be  as  the 
sands  of  the  sea;  may  the  Twentieth  Century  only  introduce 
the  glorious  prime  of  a  career  of  which  the  Nineteenth  saw  but 
modest  beginnings,  and  may  good  old  Miami  still  flourish  in 
saecula  sseculorum ! 

But  the  celebration  of  her  past  and  the  aspirations  for  her 
future  belong  to  worthier  sons  —  here  among  these  gentlemen 
of  the  Board  who  have  cared  for  her  in  her  need.  I  make  them 
my  profound  acknowledgments  for  the  honor  they  have  done 
me  in  assigning  me  a  share  in  the  work  of  this  day  of  days;  and 
shall  best  deserve  their  trust  by  going  with  absolute  candor 
straight  to  my  theme. 


NEW  DUTIES 


New  Duties ; 
a  New  World 


I  shall  speak  of  the  new  duties  that  are  upon  us  and  the  new 
world  that  is  opening  to  us  with  the  new  century — of  the  spirit 
in  which  we  should  advance  and  the  results  we  have  the  right  to 
ask.  I  shall  speak  of  public  matters  which  it  is  the  duty  of  edu 
cated  men  to  consider;  and  of  matters  which  may  hereafter 
divide  parties,  but  on  which  we  must  refuse  now  to  recognize 
party  distinctions.  Partisanship  stops  at  the  guard  line.  "  In 
the  face  of  an  enemy  we  are  all  Frenchmen,"  said  an  eloquent 
imperialist  once  in  my  hearing,  in  rallying  his  followers  to  sup 
port  a  foreign  measure  of  the  French  Republic.  At  this  moment 
our  soldiers  are  facing  a  barbarous  or  semi-civilized  foe,  which 
treacherously  attacked  them  in  a  distant  land,  where  our  flag 
had  been  sent,  in  friendship  with  them,  for  the  defence  of  our 
own  shores.  Was  it  creditable  or  seemly  that  it  was  lately  left 
to  a  Bonaparte  on  our  own  soil  to  teach  some  American  leaders 
that,  at  such  a  time,  loyal  men  at  home  do  not  discourage  those 
soldiers  or  weaken  the  Grovernment  that  directs  them  ?  * 

Neither  shall  I  discuss,  here  and  now,  the  wisdom  of  all  the 
steps  that  have  led  to  the  present  situation.  For  good  or  ill 
the  war  was  fought.  Its  results  are  upon  us.  With  the  ratifica 
tion  of  the  Peace  of  Paris,  our  Continental  Republic  has  stretched 
its  wings  over  the  West  Indies  and  the  East.  It  is  a  fact  and 
not  a  theory  that  confronts  us.  We  are  actually  and  now  re 
sponsible,  not  merely  to  the  inhabitants  and  to  our  own  people, 
but  in  international  law,  to  the  commerce,  the  travel,  the-eivili- 
zation  of  the  world,  for  the  preservation  of  order  and  the  pro 
tection  of  life  and  property,  in  Cuba,  in  Porto  Rico,  in  Guam 
and  in  the  Philippine  Archipelago,  including  that  recent  haunt 
of  piracy,  the  Sulus.  Shall  we  quit  ourselves  like  men  in  the 


*  My  Dear  Sir —  I  have  received  your  letter  of  the  23d  inst.  notifying  to  me  my 
election  as  a  Vice-President  of  the  Anti-Imperialist  League.  I  recognize  the  compli 
ment  implied  in  this  election,  and  appreciate  it  the  more  by  reason  of  my  respect  for 
the  gentlemen  identified  with  the  league,  but  I  do  not  think  I  can  appropriately  or  con 
sistently  accept  the  position,  especially  since  I  learn  through  the  press  that  the  league 
adopted  at  its  recent  meeting  certain  resolutions  to  which  I  cannot  assent.  ...  I  may 
add  that,  while  I  fully  recognize  the  injustice  and  even  absurdity  of  those  charges  of 
"  disloyalty"  which  have  been  of  late  freely  made  against  some  members  of  the  league, 
and  also  that  many  honorable  and  patriotic  men  do  not  feel  as  I  do  on  this  subject,  I 
am  personally  unwilling  to  take  part  in  an  agitation  which  may  have  some  tendency 
to  cause  a  public  enemy  to  persist  in  armed  resistance,  or  may  be,  at  least,  plausibly 
represented  as  having  this  tendency.  There  can  be  no  doubt  that,  as  a  matter  of 
fact,  the  country  is  at  war  with  Aguinaldo  and  his  followers.  I  profoundly  regret 
this  fact.  .  .  .  But  it  is  a  fact,  nevertheless,  and,  as  such,  must  weigh  in  determining 
my  conduct  as  a  citizen.  .  .  . 


CHARLES  JEROME  BONAPARTE. 


Baltimore,  May  25,  1899. 


POLICY  FOR  THE  NEW  POSSESSIONS  7 

discharge  of  this  immediate  duty ;  or  shall  we  fall  to  quarrelling 
with  each  other  like  boys  as  to  whether  such  a  duty  is  a  good  or 
a  bad  thing  for  the  country,  and  as  to  who  got  it  fastened  upon 
us?  There  may  have  been  a  time  for  disputes  about  the  wisdom 
of  resisting  the  stamp  tax,  but  it  was  not  just  after  Bunker  Hill. 
There  may  have  been  a  time  for  hot  debate  about  some  mistakes 
in  the  Anti-Slavery  contest,  but  not  just  after  Sumter  and  Bull 
Run.  Furthermore,  it  is  as  well  to  remember  that  you  can  never 
grind  with  the  water  that  has  passed  the  mill.  Nothing  in  hu 
man  power  can  ever  restore  the  United  States  to  the  position  it 
occupied  the  day  before  Congress  plunged  us  into  the  war  with 
Spain ;  or  enable  us  to  escape  what  that  war  entailed.  No  mat 
ter  what  we  wish,  the  old  Continental  isolation  is  gone  forever. 
Whithersoever  we  turn  now,  we  must  do  it  with  the  burden  of 
our  late  acts  to  carry ;  the  responsibility  of  our  new  position  to 
assume. 

When  the  sovereignty  which  Spain  had  exercised  with  the 
assent  of  all  nations  over  vast  and  distant  regions  for  three 
hundred  years  was  solemnly  transferred  under  the  eye  of  the 
civilized  world  to  the  United  States,  our  first  responsibility  be 
came  the  restoration  of  order.  Till  that  is  secured,  any  hin 
drance  to  the  effort  is  bad  citizenship  —  as  bad  as  resistance  to 
the  police ;  —  as  much  worse,  in  fact,  as  its  consequences  may 
be  more  bloody  and  disastrous.  "You  have  a  wolf  by  the  ears," 
said  an  accomplished  ex-Minister  of  the  United  States  to  a  de 
parting  Peace  Commissioner  last  autumn.  "  You  cannot  let  go 
of  him  with  either  dignity  or  safety,  and  he  will  not  be  easy  to 
tame." 

But  when  the  task  is  accomplished  —  when  the  Stars  and  Policy  for 
Stripes  at  last  bring  the  order  and  peaceful  security  they  typify,  the  Newt 
instead  of  wanton  disorder,  with  all  the  concomitants  of  savage 
warfare  over  which  they  now  wave  —  we  shall  then  be  con 
fronted  with  the  necessity  of  a  policy  for  the  future  of  these 
distant  regions.  It  is  a  problem  that  calls  for  our  soberest, 
most  dispassionate  and  most  patriotic  thought.  The  colleges 
and  the  educated  classes  generally  should  make  it  a  matter  of 
conscience  —  painstakingly  considered  on  all  its  sides,  with  ref 
erence  to  international  law,  the  burdens  of  sovereignty,  the 
rights  and  interests  of  native  tribes,  and  the  legitimate  demands 
of  civilization  —  to  find  first  our  National  duty,  and  then  our 
National  interest,  which  it  is  also  a  duty  for  our  statesmen  to 
protect.  On  such  a  subject  we  have  a  right  to  look  to  our  col 
leges  for  the  help  they  should  be  so  well  equipped  to  give. 


8  OUR  NEW  DUTIES 

From  these  still  regions  of  cloistered  thought  may  well  come 
the  white  light  of  pure  reason  —  not  the  wild,  whirling  words 
of  the  special  pleader,  or  of  the  partisan,  giving  loose  rein  to 
his  hasty  first  impressions.  It  would  be  an  ill  day  for  the  col 
leges  if  crude  and  hot-tempered  incursions  into  current  public 
affairs,  like  a  few  unhappily  witnessed  of  late,  should  lead  even 
their  friends  to  fear  that  they  have  been  so  long  accustomed  to 
dogmatize  to  boys  that  they  have  lost  the  faculty  of  reasoning 
with  men. 

When  the  first  duty  is  done,  when  order  is  restored  in  those 
commercial  centres  and  on  that  commercial  highway,  somebody 
must  then  be  responsible  for  maintaining  it  —  either  ourselves 
or  some  Power  whom  we  persuade  to  take  them  off  our  hands. 
Does  anybody  doubt  what  the  American  people  in  their  present 
temper  would  say  to  the  latter  alternative!  —  the  same  people 
who,  a  fortnight  ago,  were  ready  to  break  off  their  Joint  Com 
mission  with  Great  Britain  and  take  the  chances,  rather  than 
give  up  a  few  square  miles  of  worthless  land,  and  a  harbor  of 
which  a  year  ago  they  scarcely  knew  the  name  on  the  remote 
coast  of  Alaska.  Plainly  it  is  idle  now,  in  a  government  so 
purely  dependent  on  the  popular  will,  to  scheme  or  hope  for 
giving  the  Philippine  task  over  to  other  hands  as  soon  as  order 
is  restored.  We  must  then  be  prepared  with  a  policy  for  main 
taining  it  ourselves. 

Of  late  years  men  have  unthinkingly  assumed  that  new  terri 
tory  is,  in  the  very  nature  of  our  Government,  merely  and 
necessarily  the  raw  material  for  future  States  in  the  Union. 
Colonies  and  dependencies  it  is  now  said  are  essentially  incon 
sistent  with  our  system.  But  if  any  ever  entertained  the  wild 
dream  that  the  instrument  whose  preamble  says  it  is  ordained 
for  the  United  States  of  America  could  be  stretched  to  the 
China  Sea,  the  first  Tagal  guns  fired  at  friendly  soldiers  of  the 
Union  and  the  first  mutilation  of  American  dead  that  ensued 
ended  the  nightmare  of  States  from  Asia  admitted  to  the 
American  Union.  For  that  relief,  at  least,  we  must  thank 
the  uprising  of  the  Tagalogs.  It  was  a  Continental  Union 
of  independent  sovereign  States  our  Fathers  planned.  Who 
ever  proposes  to  debase  it  with  admixtures  of  States  made 
up  from  the  islands  of  the  sea,  in  any  archipelago,  East  or  West, 
is  a  bad  friend  to  the  Republic.  We  may  guide,  protect,  elevate 
them,  and  even  teach  them,  some  day,  to  stand  alone ;  but  if  we 
ever  invite  them  into  our  Senate  and  House  to  help  rule  us,  we 
are  the  most  imbecile  of  all  the  offspring  of  time. 


THE  CONSTITUTIONAL  OBJECTION  9 

Yet  we  must  face  the  fact  that  able  and  conscientious  men  The 
believe  the  United  States  has  no  constitutional  power  to  hold  Constitutional 
territory  that  is  not  to  be  erected  into  States  in  the  Union,  or  to 
govern  people  that  are  not  to  be  made  citizens.    They  are  able 
to  cite  great  names  in  support  of  their  contention ;  and  it  would 
be  an  ill-omen  for  the  freest  and  most  successful  constitutional 
government  in  the  world  if  a  constitutional  objection  thus  forti 
fied  should  be  carelessly  considered  or  hastily  overridden. 

This  objection  rests  mainly  on  the  assumption  that  the  name 
"United  States,"  as  used  in  the  Constitution,  necessarily  in 
cludes  all  territory  the  Nation  owns,  and  on  the  historic  fact 
that  a  large  part  of  this  territory,  on  acquiring  sufficient  popu 
lation,  has  already  been  admitted  as  States,  and  has  generally 
considered  such  admission  to  be  a  right.  Now,  Mr.  Chief  Justice 
Marshall — than  whom  no  constitutional  authority  carries  greater 
weight  —  certainly  did  declare  that  the  question  what  was 
designated  by  the  term  "  United  States "  in  the  clause  of  the 
Constitution  giving  power  to  levy  duties  on  imposts  "  admitted 
of  but  one  answer."  It  "  designated  the  whole  of  the  American 
empire,  composed  of  States  and  Territories."  If  that  be  accepted 
as  final,  then  the  tariff  must  be  applied  in  Manila  precisely  as 
in  New- York,  and  goods  from  Manila  must  enter  the  New- York 
Custom  House  as  freely  as  goods  from  New-Orleans.  Sixty 
millions  would  disappear  instantly  and  annually  from  the 
Treasury,  and  our  revenue  system  would  be  revolutionized  by 
the  free  admission  of  sugar  and  other  tropical  products  from  the 
United  States  of  Asia  and  of  the  Caribbean  Sea.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  Philippines  themselves  would  be  fatally  handicapped 
by  a  tariff  wholly  unnatural  to  their  locality  and  circumstances. 
More.  If  that  be  final,  the  term  "  United  States  "  should  have 
the  same  comprehensive  meaning  in  the  clause  as  to  citizenship. 
Then  Aguinaldo  is  to-day  a  citizen  of  the  United  States,  and 
may  yet  run  for  the  Presidency.  Still  more.  The  Asiatics  south 
of  the  China  Sea  are  given  that  free  admission  to  the  country 
which  we  so  strenuously  deny  to  Asiatics  from  the  north  side 
of  the  same  sea.  Their  goods,  produced  on  wages  of  a  few  cents 
a  day,  come  into  free  competition  in  all  our  home  markets  with 
the  products  of  American  labor,  and  the  cheap  laborers  them 
selves  are  free  to  follow  if  ever  our  higher  wages  attract 
them.  More  yet.  If  that  be  final,  the  Tagalogs  and  other  tribes 
of  Luzon,  the  Visayas  of  Negros  and  Cebu,  and  the  Mahometan 
Malays  of  Mindanao  and  the  Sulus,  having  each  far  more  than 
the  requisite  population,  may  demand  admission  next  winter 
2 


10 


OUR  NEW  DUTIES 


An  Alleged 

Constitutional 

Inability 


into  the  Union  as  free  and  independent  States,  with  representa 
tives  in  Senate  and  House,  and  may  plausibly  claim  that  they 
can  show  a  better  title  to  admission  than  Nevada  ever  did,  or 
Utah  or  Idaho. 

Nor  does  the  great  name  of  Marshall  stand  alone  in  support 
of  such  conclusions.  The  converse  theory  that  these  territories 
are  not  necessarily  included  in  the  constitutional  term  "  the 
United  States"  makes  them  our  subject  dependencies,  and  at 
once  the  figure  of  Jefferson  himself  is  evoked,  with  all  the 
signers  of  the  immortal  Declaration  grouped  about  him,  renew 
ing  the  old  war-cry  that  government  derives  its  just  powers  from 
the  consent  of  the  governed.  At  different  periods  in  our  history 
eminent  statesmen  have  made  protests  on  grounds  of  that  sort. 
Even  the  first  bill  for  Mr.  Jefferson's  own  purchase  of  Louisiana 
was  denounced  by  Mr.  Macon  as  "  establishing  a  species  of  gov 
ernment  unknown  to  the  United  States";  by  Mr.  Lucas  as 
"establishing  elementary  principles  never  previously  introduced 
in  the  government  of  any  territory  of  the  United  States,"  and 
by  Mr.  Campbell  as  "  really  establishing  a  complete  despotism." 
In  1823  Chancellor  Kent  said  with  reference  to  Columbia  River 
settlements  that  "  a  government  by  Congress  as  absolute  sov 
ereign,  over  colonies,  absolute  dependents,  was  not  congenial  to 
the  free  and  independent  spirit  of  American  institutions."  In 
1848  John  C.  Calhoun  declared  that "  the  conquest  and  retention 
of  Mexico  as  a  province  would  be  a  departure  from  the  settled 
policy  of  the  Government,  in  conflict  with  its  character  and 
genius  and  in  the  end  subversive  of  our  free  institutions."  In 
1857  Mr.  Chief  Justice  Taney  said  that  "  a  power  to  rule  territory 
without  restriction  as  a  colony  or  dependent  province  would  be 
inconsistent  with  the  nature  of  our  government."  And  now, 
following  warily  in  this  line,  the  eminent  and  trusted  advocate 
of  similar  opinions  to-day,  Mr.  Senator  Hoar,  of  Massachusetts, 
says:  "The  making  of  new  States  and  providing  National 
defence  are  constitutional  ends,  so  that  we  may  acquire  and  hold 
territory  for  those  purposes.  The  governing  of  subject  peoples 
is  not  a  constitutional  end,  and  there  is  therefore  no  constitu 
tional  warrant  for  acquiring  and  holding  territory  for  that 
purpose." 

We  have  now,  as  is  believed,  presented  with  entire  fairness 
a  summary  of  the  varied  aspects  in  which  the  constitutional 
objections  mentioned  have  been  urged.  I  would  not  under 
rate  by  a  hair's  breadth  the  authority  of  these  great  names,  the 
weight  of  these  continuous  reassertions  of  principle,  the  sane- 


AN  ALLEGED  CONSTITUTIONAL  INABILITY      11 

tion  even  of  the  precedent  and  general  practice  through  a  cen 
tury.  And  yet  I  venture  to  think  that  no  candid  and  competent 
man  can  thoroughly  investigate  the  subject,  in  the  light  of  the 
actual  provisions  of  the  Constitution,  the  avowed  purpose  of  its 
framers,  their  own  practice  and  the  practice  of  their  successors, 
without  being  absolutely  convinced  that  this  whole  fabric  of  op 
position  on  constitutional  grounds  is  as  flimsy  as  a  cobweb. 
This  country  of  our  love  and  pride  is  no  malformed,  congenital 
cripple  of  a  Nation,  incapable  of  undertaking  duties  that  have 
been  found  within  the  powers  of  every  other  Nation  that  ever 
existed  since  governments  among  civilized  men  began.  Neither 
by  chains  forged  in  the  Constitution,  nor  by  chains  of  precedent; 
neither  by  the  dead  hand  we  all  revere,  that  of  the  Father  of  His 
Country,  nor  under  the  most  authoritative  exponents  of  our 
organic  act  and  of  our  history,  are  we  so  bound  that  we  cannot 
undertake  any  duty  that  devolves,  or  exercise  any  power  which 
the  emergency  demands.  Our  Constitution  has  entrapped  us 
in  no  impasse,  where  retreat  is  disgrace  and  advance  is  impossi-| 
ble.  The  duty  which  the  hand  of  Providence  rather  than  any  | 
purpose  of  man  has  laid  upon  us  is  within  our  constitutional  I 
powers.  Let  me  invoke  your  patience  for  a  rather  minute  and 
perhaps  wearisome  detail  of  the  proof. 

Every  one  recalls  this  constitutional  provision :  "  The  Con 
gress  shall  have  power  to  dispose  of  and  make  all  needful  rules 
and  regulations  respecting  the  territory  or  other  property  of  the 
United  States."  That  grant  is  absolute,  and  the  only  qualifica 
tion  is  the  one  to  be  drawn  from  the  general  spirit  of  the  Gov 
ernment  the  Constitution  was  framed  to  organize.  Is  it  con 
sistent  with  that  spirit  to  hold  territory  permanently,  or  for 
long  periods  of  time,  without  admitting  it  to  the  Union?  Let 
the  man  who  wrote  the  very  clause  in  question  answer.  That 
man  was  Gouverneur  Morris,  of  New  York,  and  you  will  find 
his  answer  on  the  192d  page  of  the  third  volume  of  his  writings, 
given  only  fifteen  years  after,  in  reply  to  a  direct  question  as  to 
the  exact  meaning  of  the  clause  :  "  I  always  thought,  when  we 
should  acquire  Canada  and  Louisiana,  it  would  be  proper  to 
govern  them  as  provinces  and  allow  them  no  voice  in  our  coun 
cils.  In  wording  the  third  section  of  the  fourth  article,  I  went 
as  far  as  circumstances  would  permit  to  establish  the  exclusion." 
This  framer  of  the  Constitution  desired  then,  and  intended  defi 
nitely  and  permanently,  to  keep  Louisiana  out !  And  yet  there 
are  men  who  tell  us  the  provision  he  drew  would  not  even  per 
mit  us  to  keep  the  Philippines  out !  To  be  more  Papist  than 
the  Pope  will  cease  to  be  a  thing  exciting  wonder,  if  everyday 


12  OUR  NEW  DUTIES 

modern  men  in  the  consideration  of  practical  and  pressing  prob 
lems  are  to  be  more  narrowly  constitutional  than  the  men  that 
wrote  the  Constitution ! 

Is  it  said  that  at  any  rate  our  practice  under  this  clause  of  the 
Constitution  has  been  against  the  view  of  the  man  that  wrote 
it,  and  in  favor  of  that  quoted  from  Mr.  Chief  Justice  Marshall  ? 
Does  anybody  seriously  think,  then,  that  though  we  have  held 
New-Mexico,  Arizona  and  Oklahoma  as  territories,  part  of  it 
nearly  a  century,  and  all  of  it  half  a  century,  our  representa 
tives  believed  all  the  while  they  had  no  constitutional  right  to 
do  so?  Who  imagines  that  when  the  third  of  a  century  during 
which  we  have  already  held  Alaska  is  rounded  out  to  a  full 
century,  that  unorganized  Territory  will  even  then  have  any 
greater  prospect  than  at  present  of  admission  as  a  State,  or  who 
believes  our  grandchildren  will  be  violating  the  Constitution  in 
keeping  it  out?  Who  imagines  that  under  the  Constitution 
ordained  on  this  continent  specifically  "  for  the  United  States 
of  America"  we  will  ever  permit  the  Kanakas,  Chinese  and  Jap 
anese,  who  make  up  a  majority  of  the  population  in  the  Sand 
wich  Islands,  to  set  up  a  government  of  their  own  and  claim 
admission  as  an  independent  and  sovereign  State  of  the  Ameri 
can  Union  ?  Finally,  let  me  add  that  conclusive  proof  relating 
not  only  to  practice  under  the  Constitution,  but  to  the  precise 
construction  of  the  constitutional  language  as  to  the  Territories 
by  the  highest  authority,  in  the  light  of  long  previous  practice, 
is  to  be  found  in  another  part  of  the  instrument  itself,  delib 
erately  added,  three-quarters  of  a  century  later.  Article  XIII 
provides  that  "  neither  slavery  nor  involuntary  servitude  shall 
exist  within  the  United  States,  or  any  place  subject  to  their  juris 
diction."  If  the  term  "  the  United  States"  as  used  in  the  Consti 
tution  really  includes  the  Territories  as  an  integral  part,  as  Mr. 
Chief  Justice  Marshall  said,  what,  then,  does  the  Constitution 
mean  by  the  additional  words,  "  or  any  place  subject  to  their 
jurisdiction  "  ?  Is  it  not  too  plain  for  argument  that  the  Con 
stitution  here  refers  to  territory  not  a  part  of  the  United  States, 
but  subject  to  its  jurisdiction  — territory,  for  example,  like  the 
Sandwich  Islands  or  the  Philippines  ? 

What,  then,  shall  we  say  to  the  opinion  of  the  great  Chief 
Justice  ?  —  for  after  all  his  is  not  a  name  to  be  dealt  with  lightly. 
Well,  first,  it  was  a  dictum,  not  a  decision  of  the  court.  Next, 
in  another  and  later  case,  before  the  same  eminent  jurist  came 
a  constitutional  expounder  as  eminent,  and  as  generally  ac 
cepted  —  none,  other  than  Daniel  Webster  —  who  took  precisely 
the  opposite  view.  He  was  discussing  the  condition  of  certain 


territory  on  this  continent  which  we  had  recently  acquired. 
Said  Mr.  Webster :  "  What  is  Florida  ?  It  is  no  part  of  the 
United  States.  How  can  it  be  ?  Florida  is  to  be  governed  by 
Congress  as  it  thinks  proper.  Congress  might  have  done  any 
thing,  might  have  refused  a  trial  by  jury,  and  refused  a  Legis 
lature."  Well,  after  this  flat  contradiction  of  the  court's  former 
dictum  what  happened?  Simply  that  Mr.  Webster  won  his 
case,  and  that  the  Chief  Justice  made  not  the  slightest  reference 
to  his  own  previous  and  directly  conflicting  opinion !  Need  we 
give  it  more  attention  now  than  Marshall  did  then  ? 

Mr.  Webster  maintained  the  same  position  long  afterward  in 
the  Senate  of  the  United  States,  in  opposition  to  Mr.  John  C. 
Calhoun,  and  his  view  has  been  continuously  sustained  since  by 
the  courts  and  by  Congressional  action.  In  the  debate  with  Mr. 
Calhoun,  in  February,  1849,  Mr.  Webster  said :  "  What  is  the 
Constitution  of  the  United  States  ?  Is  not  its  very  first  princi 
ple  that  all  within  its  influence  and  comprehension  shall  be  rep 
resented  in  the  Legislature  which  it  establishes,  with  not  only  a 
right  of  debate  and  a  right  to  vote  in  both  houses  of  Congress, 
but  a  right  to  partake  in  the  choice  of  President  and  Vice-Presi 
dent  ?  .  .  .  The  President  of  the  United  States  shall  govern 
this  territory  as  he  sees  fit  till  Congress  makes  further  provision. 
.  .  .  We  have  never  had  a  territory  governed  as  the  United 
States  is  governed.  ...  I  do  not  say  that  while  we  sit  here  to 
make  laws  for  these  territories,  we  are  not  bound  by  every  one 
of  those  great  principles  which  are  intended  as  general  securities 
for  public  liberty.  But  they  do  not  exist  in  territories  till  in 
troduced  by  the  authority  of  Congress.  .  .  .  Our  history  is 
uniform  in  its  course.  It  began  with  the  acquisition  of  Louisi 
ana.  It  went  on  after  Florida  became  a  part  of  the  Union.  In  all 
cases,  under  all  circumstances,  by  every  proceeding  of  Congress 
on  the  subject  and  by  all  judicature  on  the  subject,  it  has  been 
held  that  territories  belonging  to  the  United  States  were  to  be 
governed  by  a  constitution  of  their  own,  .  .  .  and  in  approving 
that  constitution  the  legislation  of  Congress  was  not  necessarily 
confined  to  those  principles  that  bind  it  when  it  is  exercised  in 
passing  laws  for  the  United  States  itself." 

Mr.  Calhoun,  in  the  course  of  this  debate,  asked  Mr.  Webster 
for  judicial  opinion  sustaining  these  views,  and  Mr.  Webster 
said  that  "  the  same  thing  has  been  decided  by  the  United 
States  courts  over  and  over  again  for  the  last  thirty  years."  I 
may  add  that  it  has  been  so  held  over  and  over  again  during 
the  subsequent  fifty.  Mr.  Chief  Justice  Waite,  giving  the  opin 
ion  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United  States  (in  National 


14 


OUR  NEW  DUTIES 


More  Recent 

Constitutional 

Objections 


Bank  agt.  Co.  of  Yankton,  101  U.  S.,  129-132),  said:  "  It  is  cer 
tainly  now  too  late  to  doubt  the  power  of  Congress  to  govern 
the  Territories.  Congress  is  supreme,  and  for  all  the  purposes  of 
this  department,  has  all  the  powers  of  the  people  of  the  United 
States,  except  such  as  have  been  expressly  or  by  implication 
reserved  in  the  prohibitions  of  the  Constitution." 

Mr.  Justice  Stanley  Matthews,  of  the  United  States  Supreme 
Court,  stated  the  same  view  with  even  greater  clearness  in  one 
of  the  Utah  polygamy  cases  (Murphy  agt.  Ramsey,  114  U.  S., 
44,  45) :  "  It  rests  with  Congress  to  say  whether  in  a  given  case 
any  of  the  people  resident  in  the  Territory  shall  participate  in 
the  election  of  its  officers  or  the  making  of  its  laws.  It  may 
take  from  them  any  right  of  suffrage  it  may  previously  have 
conferred,  or  at  any  time  modify  or  abridge  it,  as  it  may  deem 
expedient.  .  .  .  Their  political  rights  are  franchises  which 
they  hold  as  privileges,  in  the  legislative  discretion  of  the 
United  States." 

The  very  latest  judicial  utterance  on  the  subject  is  in  har 
mony  with  all  the  rest.  Mr.  Justice  Morrow,  of  the  United 
States  Court  of  Appeals  for  the  Ninth  Circuit,  in  February, 
1898,  held  (57  U.  S.  Appeals,  6) :  "  The  now  well-established 
doctrine  [is]  that  the  Territories  of  the  United  States  are  en 
tirely  subject  to  the  legislative  authority  of  Congress.  They 
are  not  organized  under  the  Constitution  nor  subject  to  its 
complex  distribution  of  the  powers  of  government.  .  .  .  The 
United  States,  having  rightfully  acquired  the  Territories,  and 
being  the  only  Government  which  can  impose  laws  upon  them, 
has  the  entire  dominion  and  sovereignty,  National  and  muni 
cipal,  Federal  and  State." 

In  the  light  of  such  expositions  of  our  constitutional  power, 
and  our  uniform  National  practice,  it  is  difficult  to  deal  patiently 
with  the  remaining  objections  to  the  acquisition  of  territory, 
purporting  to  be  based  on  constitutional  grounds.  One  is  that 
to  govern  the  Philippines  without  their  consent  or  against  the 
opposition  of  Aguinaldo  is  to  violate  the  principle,  only  formu 
lated  to  be  sure,  in  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  but,  as  they 
say,  underlying  the  whole  Constitution,  that  government  derives 
its  just  powers  from  the  consent  of  the  governed.  In  the  Sulu 
group  piracy  prevailed  for  centuries.  How  could  a  government 
that  put  it  down  rest  on  the  consent  of  Sulu?  Would  it  be 
without  just  powers  because  the  pirates  did  nqt  vote  in  its  favor? 
In  other  parts  of  the  archipelago  what  has  been  stigmatized  as 
a  species  of  slavery  prevails.  Would  a  government  that  stopped 


MORE  RECENT  CONSTITUTIONAL  OBJECTIONS   15 

that  be  without  just  powers  till  the  slaveholders  had  conferred 
them  at  a  popular  election  1  In  another  part,  head-hunting  is, 
at  certain  seasons  of  the  year,  a  recognized  tribal  custom. 
Would  a  government  that  interfered  with  that  practice  be  open 
to  denunciation  as  an  usurpation,  without  just  powers,  and 
flagrantly  violating  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  unless 
it  waited  at  the  polls  for  the  consent  of  the  head-hunters  ?  The 
truth  is,  all  intelligent  men  know,  and  few  even  in  America,  ex 
cept  obvious  demagogues,  hesitate  to  admit,  that  there  are  cases 
where  a  good  government  does  not  and  ought  not  to  rest  on  the 
consent  of  the  governed.  If  men  will  not  govern  themselves 
with  respect  for  civilization  and  its  agencies,  then  when  they 
get  in  the  way  they  must  be  governed  —  always  have  been, 
whenever  the  world  was  not  retrograding,  and  always  will  be. 
The  notion  that  such  government  is  a  revival  of  slavery,  and 
that  the  United  States  by  doing  its  share  of  such  work  in  behalf 
of  civilization  would  therefore  become  infamous,  though  put 
forward  with  apparent  gravity,  in  some  eminently  respectable 
quarters,  is  too  fantastic  for  serious  consideration. 

Mr.  Jefferson  may  be  supposed  to  have  known  the  meaning  of 
the  words  he  wrote.  Instead  of  vindicating  a  righteous  rebellion 
in  the  Declaration,  he  came,  after  a  time,  to  exercising  a  right 
eous  government  under  the  Constitution.  Did  he  himself  then 
carry  his  own  words  to  such  extremes  as  these  professed  disciples 
now  demand?  Was  he  guilty  of  subverting  the  principles  of 
the  Government  in  buying  some  hundreds  of  thousands  of 
Spaniards,  Frenchmen,  Creoles  and  Indians,  "like  sheep  in  the 
shambles,"  as  the  critics  untruthfully  say  we  did  in  the  Philip 
pines!  We  bought  nobody  there.  We  held  the  Philippines 
first  by  the  same  right  by  which  we  held  our  own  original  thir 
teen  States  —  the  oldest  and  firmest  of  all  rights  —  the  right  by 
which  nearly  every  great  nation  holds  the  bulk  of  its  territory — 
the  right  of  conquest.  We  held  them  again  as  a  rightful  indem 
nity,  and  a  low  one,  for  a  war  in  which  the  vanquished  could 
give  no  other.  We  bought  nothing ;  and  the  twenty  millions 
that  accompanied  the  transfer  just  balanced  the  Philippine 
debt.  That  payment  was  a  recognition  of  the  sound  rule  of 
international  law,  obeyed  now  in  the  practice  of  all  civilized 
nations,  that  where  debts  have  been  incurred  by  a  mother  coun 
try  legitimately  for  the  benefit  of  a  colony,  they  follow  the 
colony  when  its  sovereignty  is  transferred.  But  Jefferson  did, 
if  you  choose  to  accept  the  hypercritical  interpretation  of  these 
latter-day  Jeffersonians  —  Jefferson  did  buy  the  Louisianians  — 
even  "  like  sheep  in  the  shambles,"  if  you  care  so  to  describe  it ; 


16  OUR  NEW  DUTIES 

and  did  proceed  to  govern  them  without  the  consent  of  the  gov 
erned.  Monroe  bought  the  Floridians  without  their  consent. 
Polk  conquered  the  Californians,  and  Pierce  bought  the  New- 
Mexicans.  Seward  bought  the  Russians  and  Alaskans,  and  we 
have  governed  them  ever  since  without  their  consent.  Is  it 
easy,  in  the  face  of  such  facts,  to  preserve  your  respect  for  an 
objection  so  obviously  captious  as  that  based  on  the  phrase  from 
the  Declaration  of  Independence? 

Nor  is  the  turn  Senator  Hoar  gives  the  constitutional  objection 
much  more  weighty.  In  that  he  wishes  to  take  account  of  mo 
tives,  and  pry  into  the  purpose  of  those  concerned  in  any  acqui 
sition  of  territory,  before  the  tribunals  can  decide  whether  it  is 
constitutional  or  not.  If  acquired  either  for  the  National  defence 
or  to  be  made  a  State  the  act  is  constitutional ;  otherwise  not. 
If,  then,  Jefferson  intended  to  make  a  State  out  of  Idaho,  his  act 
in  acquiring  that  part  of  the  Louisiana  Purchase  was  all  right. 
Otherwise  he  violated  the  Constitution  he  had  helped  to  make 
and  sworn  to  uphold.  And  yet,  poor  man,  he  hardly  knew  of 
the  existence  of  that  part  of  the  territory,  and  certainly  never 
dreamed  that  it  would  ever  become  a  State,  any  more  than 
Daniel  Webster  dreamed,  to  quote  his  own  language  in  the 
Senate,  that  "California  would  ever  be  worth  a  dollar."  Is 
G-ouverneur  Morris  to  be  arraigned  as  false  to  the  Constitution 
he  helped  to  frame  because  he  wanted  to  acquire  Louisiana  and 
Canada,  and  keep  them  both  out  of  the  Union  1  Did  Mr.  Seward 
betray  the  Constitution  and  violate  his  oath  in  buying  Alaska 
without  the  purpose  of  making  it  a  State  ?  It  seems,  let  it  be 
said  with  all  respect,  that  we  have  reached  the  reductio  ad 
absurdum,  and  that  the  constitutional  argument  in  any  of  its 
phases  need  not  be  further  pursued. 

The  Little  If  I  have  wearied  you  with  these  detailed  proofs  of  a  doctrine 
Americans  which  Mr.  Justice  Morrow  rightly  says  is  now  well  established, 
and  these  replies  to  its  assailants,  the  apology  must  be  found  in 
the  persistence  with  which  the  utter  lack  of  constitutional 
power  to  deal  with  our  new  possessions  has  been  vociferously 
urged  from  the  outset  by  the  large  class  of  our  people  whom  I 
venture  to  designate  as  the  Little  Americans  —  using  that  term 
not  in  the  least  in  disparagement,  but  solely  as  distinctive  and 
convenient.  From  the  beginning  of  the  century,  at  every  epoch 
in  our  history,  we  have  had  these  Little  Americans.  They  op 
posed  Jefferson  as  to  getting  Louisiana.  They  opposed  Monroe 
as  to  Florida.  They  were  vehement  against  Texas,  against  Cali 
fornia,  against  organizing  Oregon  and  Washington,  against  the 


THE  PLAIN  PATH  OF  DUTY  17 

Q-adsden  Purchase,  against  Alaska  and  against  the  Sandwich 
Islands.  At  nearly  every  stage  in  that  long  story  of  expansion 
the  Little  Americans  have  either  denied  the  Constitutional 
authority  to  acquire  and  govern,  or  denounced  the  acquisitions 
as  worthless  and  dangerous.  At  one  stage,  indeed,  they  went 
further.  When  State  after  State  was  passing  ordinances  of 
secession,  they  raised  the  cry,  erroneously  attributed  to  my  dis 
tinguished  predecessor  and  friend,  Horace  Greeley,  but  really 
uttered  by  Winfield  Scott,  "  Wayward  Sisters,  depart  in  peace  ! " 
Happily  this  form,  too,  of  "  Little  Americanism  "  failed.  We  are 
all  glad  now  —  my  distinguished  classmate  here,*  who  wore  the 
gray  and  invaded  Ohio  with  Morgan,  as  glad  as  myself  —  we  all 
rejoice  that  these  doctrines  were  then  opposed  and  overborne. 
It  was  seen  then,  and  I  venture  to  think  it  may  be  seen  now, 
that  it  is  a  fundamental  principle  with  the  American  people, 
and  a  duty  imposed  upon  all  who  represent  them,  to  maintain 
the  Continental  Union  of  American  Independent  States  in  all 
the  purity  of  the  fathers'  conception ;  to  hold  what  belongs  to  it, 
and  get  what  it  is  entitled  to ;  and,  finally,  that  wherever  its 
flag  has  been  rightfully  advanced,  there  it  is  to  be  kept.  If  that 
be  Imperialism,  make  the  most  of  it ! 

It  was  no  vulgar  lust  of  power  that  inspired  the  statesmen  The  Plain 
and  soldiers  of  the  Republic  when  they  resisted  the  halting  Path  of  Duty 
counsel  of  the  Little  Americans  in  the  past.   Nor  is  it  now.   Far 
other  is  the  spirit  we  invoke  — 

Stern  daughter  of  the  Voice  of  God, 
O  Duty  !  If  that  name  thou  love  — 

in  that  name  we  beg  for  a  study  of  what  the  new  situation  that 
is  upon  us,  the  new  world  opening  around  us  now  demands  at 
our  hands. 

The  people  of  the  United  States  will  not  refuse  an  appeal  in 
that  name.  They  never  have.  They  had  been  so  occupied, 
since  the  Civil  War,  first  in  repairing  its  ravages,  and  then  in 
occupying  and  possessing  their  own  Continent,  they  had  been 
so  little  accustomed,  in  this  generation  or  the  last,  to  even  the 
thought  of  foreign  war,  that  one  readily  understands  why  at  the 
outset  they  hardly  realized  how  absolute  is  the  duty  of  an  hon 
orable  conqueror  to  accept  and  discharge  the  responsibilities  of 
his  conquest.  But  this  is  no  longer  a  child-nation,  irresponsible 
in  its  non-age  and  incapable  of  comprehending  or  assuming  the 
responsibility  of  its  acts.  A  child  that  breaks  a  pane  of  glass 

*  The  Hon.  Albert  S.  Berry,  M.  C.  from  the  Covington,  Ky.,  District. 


18  OUE  NEW  DUTIES 

or  sets  fire  to  a  house  may  indeed  escape.  Are  we  to  plead  the 
baby  act  and  claim  that  we  can  flounce  around  the  world,  break 
ing  international  china  and  burning  property,  and  yet  repudiate 
the  bill,  because  we  have  not  come  of  age  1  Who  dare  say  that 
a  self-respecting  Power  could  have  sailed  away  from  Manila 
and  repudiated  the  responsibilities  of  its  victorious  belligerency? 
After  going  into  a  war  for  Humanity,  were  we  so  craven  that  we 
should  seek  freedom  from  further  trouble  at  the  expense  of 
Civilization  ? 

If  we  did  not  want  those  responsibilities  we  ought  not  to  have 
gone  to  war,  and  I  for  one  would  have  been  content.  But,  hav 
ing  chosen  to  go  to  war,  and  having  been  speedily  and  over 
whelmingly  successful,  we  should  be  ashamed  even  to  think 
of  running  away  from  what  inexorably  followed.  Mark  what 
the  successive  steps  were,  and  how  link  by  link  the  chain  that 
binds  us  now  was  forged. 

The  moment  war  was  foreseen,  the  fleet  we  usually  have  in 
Chinese  waters  became  indispensable,  not  merely  as  before  to 
protect  our  trade  and  our  missionaries  in  China,  but  to  check 
mate  the  Spanish  fleet,  which  otherwise  held  San  Francisco  and 
the  whole  Pacific  coast  at  its  mercy.  When  war  was  declared 
our  fleet  was  necessarily  ordered  out  of  neutral  ports.  Then  it 
had  to  go  to  Manila  or  go  home.  If  it  went  home,  it  left  the 
whole  Pacific  coast  unguarded,  save  at  the  particular  point  it 
touched ;  and  we  should  have  been  at  once  in  a  fever  of  apprehen 
sion,  chartering  hastily  another  fleet  of  the  fastest  ocean-going 
steamers  we  could  find  in  the  world,  to  patrol  the  Pacific  from 
San  Diego  to  Sitka,  as  we  did  have  to  patrol  the  Atlantic  from 
Key  West  to  Bar  Harbor.  Palpably  this  was  to  go  the  longest 
way  around  to  do  a  task  that  had  to  be  done  in  any  event ;  as 
well  as  to  demoralize  our  forces  at  the  opening  of  the  war  with 
a  manoeuvre  in  which  our  Navy  has  never  been  expert,  that  of 
avoiding  a  contest  and  sailing  away  from  the  enemy !  The  al 
ternative  was  properly  taken.  Dewey  went  to  Manila  and  sunk 
the  Spanish  fleet.  We  thus  broke  down  Spanish  means  for  con 
trolling  the  Philippines,  and  were  left  with  the  Spanish  respon 
sibility  for  maintaining  order  there  —  responsibility  to  all  the 
world,  G-erman,  English,  Japanese,  Russian  and  the  rest,  in  one 
of  the  great  centres  and  highways  of  the  world's  commerce. 

But  why  not  turn  over  that  commercial  centre  and  the  island 
on  which  it  is  situated  to  the  Tagalogs  ?  To  be  sure !  Under 
three  hundred  years  of  Spanish  rule  barbarism  on  Luzon  had 
so  far  disappeared  that  this  commercial  metropolis,  as  large  as 
San  Francisco  or  Cincinnati,  had  sprung  up,  and  come  to  be 


THE  POLICY  FOR  OUR  DEPENDENCIES          19 

thronged  by  traders  and  travellers  of  all  nations.  Now  it  is 
calmly  suggested  that  we  might  have  turned  it  over  to  one 
semi-civilized  tribe,  absolutely  without  experience  in  governing 
even  itself,  much  less  a  great  community  of  foreigners  —  proba 
bly  in  a  minority  on  the  island,  and  at  war  with  its  other  in 
habitants  —  a  tribe  which  has  given  the  measure  of  its  fitness 
for  being  charged  with  the  rights  of  foreigners  and  the  care  of 
a  commercial  metropolis  by  the  violation  of  flags  of  truce, 
treachery  to  the  living  and  mutilation  of  the  dead  which  have 
marked  its  recent  wanton  rising  against  the  Power  that  was 
trying  to  help  it ! 

If  running  away  from  troublesome  responsibility  and  duty  is 
our  role,  why  did  we  not  long  ago  take  the  opportunity,  in  our 
early  feebleness,  to  turn  over  Tallahassee  and  St.  Augustine  to 
the  Seminoles,  instead  of  sending  Andrew  Jackson  to  protect 
the  settlements  and  subdue  the  savages?  Why  at  the  first 
Apache  outbreak  after  the  Gadsden  Purchase  did  we  not  hasten 
to  turn  over  New-Mexico  and  Arizona  to  their  inhabitants  ?  Or 
why,  in  years  within  the  memory  of  most  of  you,  when  the 
Sioux  and  Chippewas  rose  on  our  Northwestern  frontier,  did  we 
not  invite  them  to  retain  possession  of  St.  Cloud,  and  even 
come  down,  if  they  liked,  to  St.  Paul  and  Minneapolis  ? 

Unless  I  am  mistaken  in  regarding  all  these  suggestions  as 
too  unworthy  to  be  entertained  by  self-respecting  citizens  of  a 
powerful  and  self-respecting  Nation,  we  have  now  reached  two 
conclusions  that  ought  to  clear  the  air  and  simplify  the  problem 
that  remains.  First,  we  have  ample  constitutional  power  to 
acquire  and  govern  new  territory  absolutely  at  will,  according 
to  our  sense  of  right  and  duty  —  whether  as  dependencies,  as 
colonies  or  as  a  protectorate.  Second,  as  the  legitimate  and 
necessary  consequence  of  our  own  previous  acts,  it  has  become 
our  National  and  international  duty  to  do  it. 

How  shall  we  set  about  it  I    What  shall  be  the  policy  with  The  Policy 
which,  when  order  has  been  inexorably  restored,  we  begin  our  for  our 
dealings  with  the  new  wards  of  the  Nation  ?      Certainly  we    epCT 
must  mark  our  disapproval  of  the  treachery  and  barbarities  of 
the  present  contest.    Clearly  the  oppression  of  other  tribes  by 
the  Tagalogs  must  be  ended ;  or  the  oppression  of  any  tribe  by 
any  other  within  the  sphere  of  our  active  control.    Wars  be 
tween  the  tribes  must  be  discouraged  and  prevented.    We  must 
seek  to   suppress   crimes   of  violence  and  private  vengeance, 
secure  individual  liberty,  protect  individual  property  and  pro 
mote  the  study  of  the  arts  of  peace.    Above  all,  we  must  give 


20  OUE  NEW  DUTIES 

and  enforce  justice ;  and  for  the  rest,  as  far  as  possible,  leave 
them  alone.  By  all  means  let  us  avoid  a  fussy  meddling  with 
their  customs,  manners,  prejudices  and  beliefs.  Give  them 
order  and  justice  and  trust  to  these  to  win  them  in  other  re 
gards  to  our  ways.  All  this  points  directly  to  utilizing  existing 
agencies  as  much  as  possible,  developing  native  initiative  and 
control  in  local  matters  as  fast  and  as  far  as  we  can,  and  ulti 
mately  giving  them  the  greatest  degree  of  self-government  for 
which  they  prove  themselves  fitted. 

Under  any  conditions  that  exist  now  or  have  existed  for  three 
hundred  years,  a  homogeneous  native  government  over  the 
whole  archipelago  is  obviously  impossible.  Its  relations  to  the 
outside  world  must  necessarily  be  assumed  by  us.  We  must 
preserve  order  in  Philippine  waters,  regulate  the  harbors,  fix  and 
collect  the  duties,  apportion  the  revenue  and  supervise  the  ex 
penditure.  We  must  enforce  sanitary  measures.  We  must 
retain  such  a  control  of  the  superior  courts  as  shall  make  justice 
certainly  attainable,  and  such  control  of  the  police  as  shall  insure 
its  enforcement.  But  in  all  this,  after  the  absolute  authority 
has  been  established,  the  further  the  natives  can  themselves  be 
used  to  carry  out  details  the  better. 

Such  a  system  might  not  be  unwise  even  for  a  colony  to  which 
we  had  reason  to  expect  a  considerable  emigration  of  our  own 
people.  If  experience  of  a  kindred  nation  in  dealing  with  simi 
lar  problems  counts  for  anything,  it  is  certainly  wise  for  a  distant 
dependency,  always  to  be  populated  mainly,  save  in  the  great 
cities,  by  native  races,  and  little  likely  ever  to  be  quite  able  to 
stand  alone,  while,  nevertheless,  we  wish  to  help  it  just  as  much 
as  possible  to  that  end. 

The  Duty  Certainly  this  is  no  bed  of  flowery  ease  in  the  dreamy  Orient 
to  which  we  are  led.  No  doubt  these  first  glimpses  of  the  task 
that  lies  before  us,  as  well  as  the  warfare  with  distant  tribes 
into  which  we  have  been  unexpectedly  plunged,  will  provoke 
for  the  time  a  certain  discontent  with  our  new  possessions.  But 
on  a  far-reaching  question  of  National  policy  the  wise  public 
man  is  not  so  greatly  disturbed  by  what  people  say  in  momen 
tary  discouragement  under  the  first  temporary  check.  That 
which  really  concerns  him  is  what  people  at  a  later  day,  or  even 
in  a  later  generation,  might  say  of  men  trusted  with  great  duties 
for  their  country,  who  proved  unequal  to  their  opportunities, 
and  through  some  short-sighted  timidity  of  the  moment  lost  the 
chance  of  centuries. 
It  is  quite  true,  as  was  recently  reported  in  what  seemed  an 


THE  DUTY  OF  PUBLIC  SEEVANTS  21 

authoritative  way  from  Washington,  that  the  Peace  Commission 
ers  were  not  entirely  of  one  mind  at  the  outset,  and  equally  true 
that  the  final  conclusion  at  Washington  was  apparently  reached 
on  the  Commission's  recommendation  from  Paris.  As  the  cold 
fit,  in  the  language  of  one  of  our  censors,  has  followed  the  hot 
fit  in  the  popular  temper,  I  readily  take  the  time  which  hostile 
critics  consider  unfavorable,  for  accepting  my  own  share  of 
responsibility,  and  for  avowing  for  myself  that  I  declared  my 
belief  in  the  duty  and  policy  of  holding  the  whole  Philippine 
Archipelago  in  the  very  first  conference  of  the  Commissioners 
in  the  President's  room  at  the  White  House,  in  advance  of  any 
instructions  of  any  sort.  If  vindication  for  it  be  needed,  I  con 
fidently  await  the  future. 

What  is  the  duty  of  a  public  servant  as  to  profiting  by  oppor 
tunities  to  secure  for  his  country  what  all  the  rest  of  the  world 
considers  material  advantages  I  Even  if  he  could  persuade  him 
self  that  rejecting  them  is  morally  and  internationally  admissi 
ble,  is  he  at  liberty  to  commit  his  country  irrevocably  to  their 
rejection,  because  they  do  not  wholly  please  his  fancy?  At  a 
former  negotiation  of  our  own  in  Paris,  the  great  desire  of  the 
United  States  representative,  as  well  as  of  his  Government,  had 
been  mainly  to  secure  the  settled  or  partly  settled  country  ad 
joining  us  on  the  south,  stretching  from  the  Floridas  to  the  city 
of  New-Orleans.  The  possession  of  the  vast  unsettled  and  un 
known  Louisiana  Territory,  west  of  the  Mississippi,  was  neither 
sought  nor  thought  of.  Suddenly,  on  an  eventful  morning  in 
April,  1803,  Talleyrand  astonished  Livingston  by  offering,  on 
behalf  of  Napoleon,  to  sell  to  the  United  States,  not  the  Floridas 
at  all,  but  merely  Louisiana,  "  a  raw  little  semi-tropical  frontier 
town  and  an  unexplored  wilderness."  Suppose  Livingston  had 
rejected  the  offer  ?  Or  suppose  G-adsden  had  not  exceeded  his 
instructions  in  Mexico  and  boldly  grasped  the  opportunity  that 
offered  to  rectify  and  make  secure  our  Southwestern  frontier? 

The  difficulties  which  at  present  discourage  us  are  largely  of 
our  own  creation.  It  is  not  for  any  of  us  to  think  of  attempting 
to  apportion  the  blame.  The  only  thing  we  are  sure  of  is  that 
it  was  for  no  lack  of  authority  that  we  hesitated  and  drifted  till 
the  Tagalogs  were  convinced  we  were  afraid  of  them,  and  could 
be  driven  out  before  reinforcements  arrived.  That  was  the  very 
thing  our  officers  had  warned  us  against — the  least  sign  of  hesi 
tation  or  uncertainty — the  very  danger  every  European  with 
knowledge  of  the  situation  had  dinned  in  our  ears.  Everybody 
declared  that  difficulties  were  sure  to  grow  on  our  hands  in  geo 
metrical  proportion  to  our  delays ;  and  it  was  perfectly  known 
3* 


22  OUR  NEW  DUTIES 

to  the  respective  branches  of  our  Government,  primarily  con 
cerned,  that  while  the  delay  went  on  it  was  in  neglect  of  a  duty 
we  had  voluntarily  assumed. 

For  the  American  Commissioners,  with  due  authority,  dis 
tinctly  offered  to  assume  responsibility,  pending  the  ratification 
of  the  treaty,  for  the  protection  of  life  and  property  and  the 
preservation  of  order  throughout  the  whole  archipelago.  The 
Spanish  Commissioners,  after  consultation  with  their  Govern 
ment,  refused  this,  but  agreed  that  each  Power  should  be 
charged,  pending  the  ratification,  with  the  maintenance  of  order 
in  the  places  where  it  was  established.  The  American  assent  to 
that  left  absolutely  no  question  as  to  the  diminished  but  still 
grave  responsibility  thus  devolved.  That  responsibility  was 
avoided  from  the  hour  the  treaty  was  signed  till  the  hour 
when  the  Tagalog  chieftain,  at  the  head  of  an  army  he  had  been 
deliberately  gathering  and  organizing,  took  things  in  his  own 
hand  and  made  the  attack  he  had  so  long  threatened.  Disorder, 
forced  loans,  impressment,  confiscation,  seizure  of  waterworks, 
contemptuous  violations  of  our  guard  lines,  and  even  the  prac 
tical  siege  of  the  city  of  Manila  had  meantime  been  going  on 
within  gunshot  of  troops  held  there  inactive  by  the  Nation 
which  had  volunteered  responsibility  for  order  throughout  the 
archipelago,  and  had  been  distinctly  left  with  responsibility 
for  order  in  the  island  on  which  it  was  established.  If  the  bit 
terest  enemy  of  the  United  States  had  sought  to  bring  upon  it 
in  that  quarter  the  greatest  trouble  in  the  shortest  time,  he 
could  have  devised  for  that  end  no  policy  more  successful  than 
the  one  we  actually  pursued.  There  may  have  been  controlling 
reasons  for  it.  An  opposite  course  might  perhaps  have  cost 
more  elsewhere  than  it  saved  in  Luzon.  On  that  point  the  pub 
lic  cannot  now  form  even  an  opinion.  But  as  to  the  effect  in 
Luzon  there  is  no  doubt;  and  because  of  it  we  have  the  right  to 
ask  a  delay  in  judgment  about  results  there  until  the  present 
evil  can  be  undone. 

The  Carnival      Meantime,  in  accordance  with  a  well-known  and  probably 
of  Captious    unchangeable  law  of  human  nature,  this  is  the  carnival  and  very 
heyday  of  the  objectors.    The  air  is  filled  with  their  discourage 
ment. 

Some  exclaim  that  Americans  are  incapable  of  colonizing  or 
of  managing  colonies ;  that  there  is  something  in  our  National 
character  or  institutions  that  wholly  unfits  us  for  the  work. 
Yet  the  most  successful  colonies  in  the  whole  world  were  the 
thirteen  original  colonies  on  our  Atlantic  coast ;  and  the  most 


successful  colonists  were  our  own  grandfathers!  Have  the 
grandsons  so  degenerated  that  they  are  incapable  of  colonizing 
at  all,  or  of  managing  colonies  I  Who  says  so  ?  Is  it  any  one 
with  the  glorious  history  of  this  continental  colonization  bred  in 
his  bone  and  leaping  in  his  blood  ?  Or  is  it  some  refugee  from  a 
foreign  country  he  was  discontented  with,  who  now  finds  pleas 
ure  in  disparaging  the  capacity  of  the  new  country  he  came  to, 
while  he  has  neither  caught  its  spirit  nor  grasped  the  meaning 
of  its  history  ? 

Some  bewail  the  alleged  fact  that  our  system  gives  us  no  fit 
ness  for  managing  colonies  or  dependencies.  Has  our  system 
been  found  weaker,  then,  than  other  forms  of  government,  less 
adaptable  to  emergencies,  and  with  people  less  fit  to  cope  with 
them  ?  Is  the  difficulty  inherent,  or  is  it  possible  that  the  emer 
gency  may  show,  as  emergencies  have  shown  before,  that  what 
ever  task  intelligence,  energy  and  courage  can  surmount  the 
American  people  and  their  Government  can  rise  to  I 

It  is  said  the  conditions  in  our  new  possessions  are  wholly 
different  from  any  we  have  previously  encountered.  This  is 
true  ;  and  there  is  little  doubt  the  new  circumstances  will  bring 
great  modifications  in  methods.  That  is  an  excellent  reason, 
among  others,  for  some  doubt  at  the  outset  as  to  whether  we 
know  all  about  it,  but  not  for  despairing  of  our  capacity  to  learn. 
It  might  be  remembered  that  we  have  encountered  some  varieties 
of  conditions  already.  The  work  in  Florida  was  different  from 
that  at  Plymouth  Eock.  Louisiana  and  Texas  showed  again 
new  sets  of  conditions ;  California  others ;  Puget  Sound  and 
Alaska  still  others,  and  we  did  not  always  have  unbroken  suc 
cess  and  plain  sailing  from  the  outset  in  any  of  them. 

It  is  said  we  cannot  colonize  the  tropics,  because  our  people 
cannot  labor  there.  Perhaps  not,  especially  if  they  refuse  to 
obey  the  prudent  precautions  which  centuries  of  experience  have 
enjoined  upon  others.  But  what,  then,  are  we  going  to  do  with 
Porto  Rico  ?  How  soon  are  our  people  going  to  flee  from  Ari 
zona  I  And  why  is  life  impossible  to  Americans  in  Manila  and 
Cebu  and  Iloilo,  but  attractive  to  the  throngs  of  Europeans  who 
have  built  up  those  cities  ?  Can  we  mine  all  over  the  world, 
from  South  Africa  to  the  Klondike,  but  not  in  Palawan  ?  Can 
we  grow  tobacco  in  Cuba,  but  not  in  Cebu ;  or  rice  in  Louisiana, 
but  not  in  Luzon  ? 

An  alarm  is  raised  that  the  laboring  classes  are  endan 
gered  by  competition  with  cheap  tropical  labor  or  its  products. 
How?  The  interpretation  of  the  Constitution  which  would 
permit  that  is  the  interpretation  which  has  been  repudiated 


24  OUE  NEW  DUTIES 

in  an  unbroken  line  of  decisions  for  over  three-quarters  of  a 
t  century.  Only  one  possibility  of  danger  to  American  labor 
exists  in  our  new  possessions  —  the  lunacy  or  worse  of  the 
dreamers  who  want  to  prepare  for  the  admission  of  some  of 
them  as  States  in  the  American  Union.  Till  then  we  can  make 
any  law  we  like  to  prevent  the  immigration  of  their  laborers, 
and  any  tariff  we  like  to  regulate  the  admission  of  their 
products. 

It  is  said  we  are  pursuing  a  fine  method  for  restoring  order, 
in  prolonging  the  war  we  began  for  humanity  by  forcing  liberty 
and  justice  on  an  unwilling  people  at  the  point  of  the  bayonet. 
The  sneer  is  cheap.  How  else  have  these  blessings  been  gen 
erally  diffused?  How  often  in  the  history  of  the  world  has 
barbarism  been  replaced  by  civilization  without  bloodshed  ? 
How  were  our  own  liberty  and  justice  established  and  diffused 
on  this  continent  ?  Would  the  process  have  been  less  bloody  if 
a  part  of  our  own  people  had  noisily  taken  the  side  of  the  Eng 
lish,  the  Mexican  or  the  savage,  and  protested  against  "  extreme 
measures  "  1 

Some  say  a  war  to  extend  freedom  in  Cuba  or  elsewhere  is 
right,  and  therefore  our  duty ;  but  the  war  in  the  Philippines 
now  is  purely  selfish,  and  therefore  all  wrong.  The  statement 
is  inaccurate ;  it  is  a  war  we  are  in  duty  bound  to  wage  at  any 
rate  till  order  is  restored  —  but  let  that  pass.  Suppose  it  to  be 
merely  a  war  in  defence  of  our  own  just  rights  and  interests. 
Since  when  did  such  a  war  become  wrong?  Is  our  National 
motto  to  be  "  Quixotic  on  the  one  hand ;  Chinese  on  the  other  "  ? 

How  much  better  it  would  have  been,  say  others,  to  mind  our 
own  business.  No  doubt ;  but  if  we  were  to  begin  crying  over 
spilt  milk  in  that  way,  the  place  to  begin  was  where  the  milk  was 
spilled  —  in  the  Congress  that  resolved  upon  war  with  Spain. 
Since  that  Congressional  action  we  have  been  minding  what  it 
made  our  own  business  quite  diligently,  and  an  essential  part 
of  our  business  now  is  the  responsibility  for  our  own  past  acts, 
whether  in  Havana  or  Manila. 

Some  say  we  began  the  war  for  humanity,  and  are  therefore 
disgraced  by  coming  out  of  it  with  increased  territory.  Then  a 
penalty  must  always  be  imposed  upon  a  victorious  nation  for 
presuming  to  do  a  good  act.  The  only  nation  to  be  exempt 
from  such  a  penalty  upon  success  is  to  be  the  nation  that  was 
in  the  wrong !  It  is  to  have  a  premium ;  for  it  is  thus  relieved 
from  the  penalty  which  modern  practice  in  the  interest  of  civili 
zation  requires,  the  payment  of  an  indemnity  for  the  cost  of  an 
unjust  war.  Furthermore,  the  representatives  of  the  nation 


THE  CARNIVAL  OF  CAPTIOUS  OBJECTION       25 

that  does  a  good  act  are  thus  bound  to  reject  any  opportunity 
for  lightening  the  national  load  it  entails.  They  must  leave 
the  full  burden  upon  their  country,  to  be  dealt  with  in  due  time 
by  the  individual  taxpayer ! 

Again  we  have  superfine  discussions  of  what  the  United 
States  "  stands  for."  It  does  not  stand,  we  are  told,  for  foreign 
conquest,  or  for  colonies  or  dependencies,  or  other  extensions  of 
its  power  and  influence.  It  stands  for  the  development  of  the 
individual  man.  There  is  a  germ  of  a  great  truth  in  this,  but 
the  development  of  the  truth  is  lost  sight  of.  Individual  initia 
tive  is  a  good  thing,  and  our  institutions  do  develop  it  —  and 
its  consequences !  There  is  a  species  of  individualism,  too, 
about  a  bulldog.  When  he  takes  hold  he  holds  on.  It  may  as 
well  be  noticed  by  the  objectors  that  that  is  a  characteristic 
much  appreciated  by  the  American  people.  They,  too,  hold  on. 
They  remember  besides  a  pregnant  phrase  of  their  fathers,  who 
"  ordained  this  Constitution,"  among  other  things,  "  to  promote 
the  general  welfare."  That  is  a  thing  for  which  "  this  Grovern- 
ment  stands  "  also ;  and  woe  to  the  public  servant  who  rejects 
brilliant  opportunities  to  promote  it  —  on  the  Pacific  Ocean  as 
well  as  the  Atlantic  —  by  commerce  as  well  as  by  agriculture  or 
manufactures. 

It  is  said  the  Philippines  are  worthless  —  have  in  fact  already 
cost  us  more  than  the  value  of  their  entire  trade  for  many 
years  to  come.  So  much  the  more,  then,  are  we  bound  to  do 
our  duty  by  them.  But  we  have  also  heard  in  turn,  and  from 
the  same  quarters,  that  every  one  of  our  previous  acquisitions 
was  worthless. 

Again  it  is  said  our  continent  is  more  than  enough  for  all  our 
needs ;  and  our  extensions  should  stop  at  the  Pacific.  What  is 
this  but  proposing  such  a  policy  of  self-sufficient  isolation  as 
we  are  accustomed  to  reprobate  in  China  —  planning  to  de 
velop  only  on  the  soil  on  which  we  stand,  and  expecting  the 
rest  of  the  world  to  protect  our  trade  if  we  have  any  f  Can  a 
nation  with  safety  set  Chinese  limits  to  its  growth  1  When  a 
tree  stops  growing  our  foresters  tell  us  it  is  ripe  for  the  axe. 
When  a  man  stops  in  his  physical  and  intellectual  growth  he 
begins  to  decay.  When  a  business  stops  growing  it  is  in  danger 
of  decline.  When  a  nation  stops  growing  it  has  passed  the 
meridian  of  its  course,  and  its  shadows  fall  eastward. 

Is  China  to  be  our  model,  or  Great  Britain  I  Or,  better  still, 
are  we  to  follow  the  instincts  of  our  own  people  ?  The  policy  of 
isolating  ourselves  is  a  policy  for  the  refusal  of  both  duties  and 
opportunities  —  duties  to  foreign  nations  and  to  civilization 


26  t  OUB  NEW  DUTIES 

which  cannot  be  respectably  evaded  —  opportunities  for  the 
development  of  our  power  on  the  Pacific  in  the  twentieth  century 
which  it  would  be  craven  to  abandon.  There  has  been  a  curious 
"  about-face,"  an  absolute  reversal  of  attitude  toward  England, 
on  the  part  of  our  Little  Americans,  especially  at  the  East  and 
among  the  more  educated  classes.  But  yesterday  nearly  all  of 
them  were  pointing  to  England  as  our  example.  There  young 
men  of  education  and  position  felt  it  a  duty  to  go  into  politics. 
There  they  had  built  up  a  model  civil  service.  There  their  cities 
were  better  governed,  their  streets  cleaner,  their  mails  more 
promptly  delivered.  There  the  responsibilities  of  their  colonial 
system  had  enforced  the  purification  of  domestic  politics,  the 
relentless  punishment  of  corrupt  practices,  and  the  abolition  of 
bribery  in  elections,  either  by  money  or  by  office.  There  they 
had  foreign  trade,  and  a  commercial  marine,  and  a  trained  and 
efficient  foreign  service,  and  to  be  an  English  citizen  was  to  have 
a  safeguard  the  whole  world  round.  Our  young  men  were  com 
mended  to  their  example ;  our  legislators  were  exhorted  to  study 
their  practice  and  its  results.  Suddenly  these  same  teachers 
turn  around.  They  warn  us  against  the  infection  of  England's 
example.  They  tell  us  her  colonial  system  is  a  failure ;  that  she 
would  be  stronger  without  her  colonies  than  with  them ;  that 
she  is  eaten  up  with  "militarism";  that  to  keep  Cuba  or  the 
Philippines  is  what  a  selfish,  conquering,  land-grabbing,  aristo 
cratic  Government  like  England  would  do,  and  that  her  policy 
and  methods  are  utterly  incompatible  with  our  institutions. 
When  a  court  thus  reverses  itself  without  obvious  reason  (except 
a  temporary  partisan  purpose),  our  people  are  apt  to  put  their 
trust  in  other  tribunals. 

The  Future  "  I  had  thought,"  said  Wendell  Phillips,  in  his  noted  apology 
for  standing  for  the  first  time  in  his  anti-slavery  life  under  the 
flag  of  his  country,  and  welcoming  the  tread  of  Massachusetts 
men,  marshalled  for  war — "  I  had  thought  Massachusetts  wholly 
choked  with  cotton  dust  and  cankered  with  gold."  If  Little  Amer 
icans  have  thought  so  of  their  country  in  these  stirring  days,  and 
have  fancied  that  initial  reverses  would  induce  it  to  abandon  its 
duty,  its  rights  and  its  great,  permanent  interests,  they  will  live 
to  see  their  mistake.  They  will  find  it  giving  a  deaf  ear  to  these 
unworthy  complaints  of  temporary  trouble  or  present  loss ;  and 
turning  gladly  from  all  this  incoherent  and  resultless  clamor  to 
the  new  world  opening  around  us.  Already  it  draws  us  out  of 
ourselves.  The  provincial  isolation  is  gone;  and  provincial 
habits  of  thought  will  go.  There  is  a  larger  interest  in  what 


THE  FUTURE  '*"•  •"•••' :    ••' :  -27' 

other  lands  have  to  show  and  teach ;  a  larger  confidence  in  our 
own ;  a  higher  resolve  that  it  shall  do  its  whole  duty  to  man 
kind,  moral  as  well  as  material,  international  as  well  as  national, 
in  such  fashion  as  becomes  Time's  latest  offspring  and  its  great 
est.  We  are  grown  more  nearly  citizens  of  the  world. 

This  new  knowledge,  these  new  duties  and  interests  must 
have  two  effects  —  they  must  extend  our  power,  influence  and 
trade,  and  they  must  elevate  the  public  service.  Every  return 
ing  soldier  or  traveller  tells  the  same  story — that  the  very  name 
American  has  taken  a  new  significance  throughout  the  Orient. 
The  shrewd  Oriental  no  longer  regards  us  as  a  second  or  third 
class  Power.  He  has  just  seen  the  only  signs  he  recognizes  of 
a  nation  that  knows  its  rights  and  dare  maintain  them  —  a  na 
tion  that  has  come  to  stay,  with  an  empire  of  its  own  in  the 
China  Sea,  and  a  Navy  which,  from  what  he  has  seen,  he  be 
lieves  will  be  able  to  defend  it  against  the  world.  He  straight 
way  concludes,  after  the  Oriental  fashion,  that  it  is  a  nation 
whose  citizens  must  henceforth  be  secure  in  all  their  rights, 
whose  missionaries  must  be  endured  with  patience  and  even 
protected,  and  whose  friendship  must  be  sedulously  cultivated. 
The  National  prestige  is  enormously  increased,  and  trade  follows 
prestige — especially  in  the  Farther  East.  Not  within  a  century, 
not  during  our  whole  history,  has  such  a  field  opened  for  our 
reaping.  Planted  directly  in  front  of  the  Chinese  colossus,  on  a 
great  territory  of  our  own,  we  have  the  first  and  best  chance  to 
profit  by  his  awakening.  Commanding  both  sides  of  the  Pacific, 
and  the  available  coal  supplies  on  each,  we  command  the  Ocean 
that,  according  to  the  old  prediction,  is  to  bear  the  bulk  of  the 
world's  commerce  in  the  twentieth  century.  Our  glorious  land 
between  the  Sierras  and  the  sea  may  then  become  as  busy  a  hive 
as  New-England  itself,  and  the  whole  continent  must  take  fresh 
life  from  the  generous  blood  of  this  natural  and  necessary  com 
merce  between  people  of  different  climates  and  zones,  who  gladly 
buy  from  each  other  what  they  do  not  produce  themselves. 

But  these  developments  of  power  and  trade  are  the  least  of 
the  advantages  we  may  hopefully  expect.  The  faults  in  Ameri 
can  character  and  life  which  the  Little  Americans  tell  us  prove 
the  people  unfit  for  these  duties  are  the  very  faults  that  will  be 
cured  by  them.  The  recklessness  and  heedless  self-sufficiency 
of  youth  must  disappear.  Great  responsibilities,  suddenly  de 
volved,  must  sober  and  elevate  now,  as  they  have  always  done 
in  natures  not  originally  bad,  throughout  the  whole  history  of 
the  world. 

The  new  interests  abroad  must  compel  an  improved  foreign 


:28  OUR  NEW  DUTIES 

service.  It  has  heretofore  been  worse  than  we  ever  knew,  and 
also  better.  On  great  occasions  and  in  great  fields  our  diplo 
matic  record  ranks  with  the  best  in  the  world.  No  nation  stands 
higher  in  those  new  contributions  to  international  law  which 
form  the  highwater  mark  of  civilization  from  one  generation  to 
another.  At  the  same  time,  in  fields  less  under  the  public  eye, 
our  foreign  service  has  been  haphazard  at  the  best  and  often 
bad  beyond  belief  —  ludicrous  and  humiliating.  The  harm  thus 
wrought  to  our  National  good  name  arid  the  positive  injury  to 
our  trade  have  been  more  than  we  realized.  We  cannot  escape 
realizing  them  now,  and  when  the  American  people  wake  up  to 
a  wrong  they  are  apt  to  right  it. 

More  important  still  should  be  the  improvement  in  the  gen 
eral  public  service  at  home  and  in  our  new  possessions.  New 
duties  must  bring  new  methods.  Ward  politics  were  banished 
from  India  and  Egypt,  as  the  price  of  successful  administra 
tion,  and  they  must  be  excluded  from  Porto  Rico  and  Luzon. 
The  practical  common  sense  of  the  American  people  will  soon 
see  that  any  other  course  is  disastrous.  Gigantic  business  in 
terests  must  come  to  reinforce  the  theorists  in  favor  of  a  reform 
that  shall  really  elevate  and  purify  the  Civil  Service. 

Hand  in  hand  with  these  benefits  to  ourselves,  which  it  is  the 
duty  of  public  servants  to  secure,  go  benefits  to  our  new  wards 
and  benefits  to  mankind.  There,  then,  is  what  the  United 
States  is  to  "stand  for"  in  all  the  resplendent  future: — the 
rights  and  interests  of  its  own  Government;  the  general  wel 
fare  of  its  own  people ;  the  extension  of  ordered  liberty  in  the 
dark  places  of  the  earth ;  the  spread  of  civilization  and  religion, 
and  a  consequent  increase  in  the  sum  of  human  happiness  in 
the  world. 


14  DAY  USE 

RETURN  TO  DESK  FROM  WHICH  BORROWED 


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T  T^  01  A    r:n^,  1  o  -cn                                 General  Library 
Wir  9^  i    i  n  ^"TP^                                  University  of  California 
(B6221slO)47RB                                              Berkeley 

